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A dark rock you might spot orbiting the sun every 5.5 years now has its own name: 316201 Malala (2010 ML48). The part we all understand—Malala—refers to Pakistani activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, 17, who drew the world's attention by defying Taliban rule and surviving an assassination attempt in 2012, io9 reports. "It is a great honor to be able to name an asteroid after Malala," writes NASA's Amy Mainzer at the Malala Fund Blog. Her team discovered the 2.5-mile-wide asteroid floating on the Main Belt between Jupiter and Mars, so she had naming rights. She adds that while "many asteroids have been named, very few have been named to honor the contributions of women (and particularly women of color). ... My advice to young girls is that science and engineering are for everyone!"

A small remind that some do oppose groups as the Taliban, but at a cost. She deserves her new honor.

julianpenrod

Apr 11, 2015 5:23 PM CDT

Again, it is wrong to allow a lie to go uncontested. And the entire Malala Yousufzai story is a fabrication. The “official story” has it that Malala's diary entries were “discovered” by BBC and they arranged for her to speak on radio, condemning the Taliban. In anger, several years after she had started broadcasting against them, they sent a gunman to jump onto Malala's school bus and shoot her, but he failed to kill her. Among other things, how did the BBC even find out about her diary entires. Did they audition girls throughout the country to see what they had in their diaries? If it was so dangerous fer her in Pakistan, why didn't the BBC evacuate her out? Why didn't her own family evacuate her out? Why did they wait several years to try to kill her? Why didn't they send something more certain, like a suicide bomber? Why didn't they attack her at her house where she presumably was when she wasn't in school? And, if you look at depictions of the “trajectory” of the “bullet” she was supposedly struck with, it would require the shooter to stand three feet up in midair! Also, Malala was purportedly wearing a heavy robe, which could absorb any blood, and was shot in the front, but the wall of the supposed school bus behind she she was supposedly sitting had a huge red spot of blood behind where she was claimed to have been. And the claimed “trajectory” for the “bullet” would carry it through her forehead, through her eye, and through the hinge of her jaw. That would produce significant bleeding and massive bruising, as well as leaving powder burs. Yet, in initial photographs supposedly taken at the scene, there was no sign of any of this! The Malala story is nothing but a lie.